<p>How long should common app essays be for elite colleges? Should it be 500 words or is 600-700 acceptable? I’m not really sure since they give you a lot of characters but they say it should be 500 words.</p>
<p>Stick to word limits. Disobeying this simple rule could be the same as applicant fails to follow instructions, thus, how is he going to follow instructions in general? And you don’t even need to come close to that 500 word limit, I know that mine was around 350/375 words so don’t feel the need to go all out. Just be a concise writer with innovative ideas and you should be fine. Good luck :D</p>
<p>How’s 700 words?</p>
<p>Too long. 500 word limit is there for a reason.</p>
<p>But why do they give you such a big space?!?!?</p>
<p>500 word limit is there for a reason: they are sick of reading essays all day.<br>
Extra space is there for people who can’t follow simple instructions.</p>
<p>amen, collegebound 2007. 700 words means that that extra 200 words must be incredible. They don’t expect amazing work in 500 words, but they expect you to listen to directions.</p>
<p>How about the supplemental essay? Can those be more than 500 words?</p>
<p>virtuoso, I had the same question since it doesn’t make sense for them to tell you around 500 words, but give you 6,000 characters, which is about double the word limit…</p>
<p>but I guess there’s a general consensus for around 500 words? … cause mine is around 700 as well.</p>